Fog and Sun

Sister Connie is kind to send me their car transponder before I make the trip to Indiana.  I mount it on my windshield, sail through any toll roads between us, and when I return I mail it back to her w/ a check to cover the tolls/mailing.  Usually it's on it's way back the next day after I return but I kinda forgot and didn't send it off until three days later.  The post mistress said there were two ways to send it so I picked the option that would get it there the quickest since I was already late in returning it.  The slip I got from the Post Office had a tracking number and a estimate that it would reach my sister's on Monday, the 18th. The package didn't arrive back at my sister's until a week later.    The post office details each step of the package's journey.   

• Thursday the 14th I posted package and it went out in the mail truck same day.
• Saturday the 16th   Pkg in College Town (60 miles away - no notes on where it spent Friday.)
• Monday the 18th Pkg in Big City (80 miles away and in opposite direction of final destination).
• Tuesday the 19th Pkg in Cincinnati (694 miles)    
• Wednesday the 20th   Pkg in Indianapolis (112 miles)
• Thursday the 21st  Pkg in sister's P.O. box (163 miles)

Let's play a little mind game.  The Pony Express averaged 10 miles per hour.  (Horses gallop over twice as fast but there is getting on/off, terrain, weather, etc. to take into account.)  It's 560 miles between my house and Connie's.  If the package had gone by Pony Express it would have arrived in 56 hours or 2.3 days.  The Pony Express lasted only about two years because technology created faster modes of communication.  Hard to believe that even after another 160 years of further innovations, the Pony Express would have still been three times faster than the current U.S. Postal Service.   On the brighter side, the Pony Express charged the princely sum of $5/ounce.  My package would have cost $22.50 instead of the actual $10.20. Of course once established the Pony Express lowered their costs to $1/ounce so I might have paid a bargain $4.50.